ee in the afternoon. They employed this
interval in removing a calumny spread by the Contra-Remonstrants, that
they were sent to change the religion. One of the City-Secretaries
waited on them to conduct them to the Council Chamber, and being come
there, Grotius, as spokesman, said, "That Sovereigns had a right to
watch over the proceedings of the Church; that the States had no
intention but to protect the reformed religion; that they ardently
desired the city of Amsterdam would agree with them in all that might
relate to the government of the Church and mutual toleration; that the
revival of the regulation of 1591, which gives the Magistrates a right
to chuse the Ministers, after being examined and found well affected to
the reformed religion, was of great service, by preventing the troubles
which followed the elections; of which there were several recent
instances: that mutual toleration was necessary when the difference in
opinion regarded only points not fundamental; that it had always been
practised by the reformed churches from the time of Calvin's
reformation; that it was more necessary in the doctrine of
Predestination, as this was a matter of great difficulty; that the first
reformers, though of different sentiments, tolerated one another; that
Bullinger and Melancton were tolerated by Beza and Calvin; that James I.
King of Great Britain, had advanced in his writings, that the two
opposite opinions concerning Predestination might be maintained without
danger of damnation; that Gomar himself declared Arminius had not erred
in fundamental points; that after the conference in 1611, the Ministers
of the two parties promised to the States of Holland to live in peace;
that the points controverted were not necessary to salvation, that they
were very difficult, that they never had been determined, either in the
ancient, or the reformed church; that the decisions of the councils held
in the church on occasion of Pelagianism enjoined only a belief, that
men are corrupted and have need of grace, and that the beginning of
grace is from God; that even the church of Rome permitted the Doctors of
different parties to dispute on these points; that it was not necessary
to call a synod to examine them, because the authority of a Sovereign is
sufficient in matters where only the preventing of schism for things
unnecessary to salvation, is in question; that the Sovereign has a right
to suppress disorders that arise in the church; th